Generally speaking, a 12" is going to provide better low end in a single-speaker cab, if that is what you're referring to as "warmth." When I think of "tube" and "warmth" I think of how it breaks up and saturates into distortion. When I think of Jazz I think of clean and round, not distorted (although, yes, I know there are many famous jazz-flavors of distortion) so perhaps you need to better define what (or whose) tone you're trying to reproduce.

Generally speaking, a 12" is going to provide better low end in a single-speaker cab, if that is what you're referring to as "warmth." When I think of "tube" and "warmth" I think of how it breaks up and saturates into distortion. When I think of Jazz I think of clean and round, not distorted (although, yes, I know there are many famous jazz-flavors of distortion) so perhaps you need to better define what (or whose) tone you're trying to reproduce.

Hi Bash,

yes i'm referring to 12 as warmth and not "boxy" as in terms of tube and warmth just warm and lush round sounding
i've tried a couple of Solid state amps and the dont cut it for me...
what i already told is a friend is loaning me a Kustom 12 watt tube amp to try out
it doesnt have a emulated output, but before i say no i'm gonna try it first

The emulated amp isn't a big problem. There's something called a Red Box you can find for less than $100 used that'll do the emulation really well. You just plug it in between your amp and your speaker.

As to what you're going to like the sound of, you've got to try things. For home recording I like the Emery Superbaby with a selection of tubes and a cool speaker or two... But if that isn't happening perhaps you could go to a Guitar Center and try a number of the smaller amps? There's some pretty cool stuff out there right now: Vox Nighttrain, Orange Tiny Terror, Blackstar, Egnator, Fender SuperchampXD, Marshall Haze...

You said you wanted to "go the amp route preferable with an di out or emulated out".

If you're doing that for the purpose of recording, and don't want to hear the speaker (and you're using a tube amp), the Red Box needs to have a load resistor connected to the thru jack, to avoid frying your amp.

I think the Palmer PDI 09 sounds less cloudy than the Red Box, but it is more expensive.

Having said that, for overdriven tones, generally mic'ing the speaker sounds best, though choice of mic and mic placement are crucial. For example, moving the mic away from the speaker cone will soften the high end.

Hi , if you're kinda a jazzer I would recommend a Fender princeton reverb reissue. These are great amps for studio and small live venues with a wrist drummer as opposed to a "shoulder" hitter drummer. It has tube reverb which is hard to come by in small tube combo's these days. I have a Mesa Boogie Subway blues (which is out of production) that is killer but it's 22 watts vs. the Princeton's 12.5 watts. If you do buy a silver face vintage Princeton , try finding one before 75 or 76 because they do not have the "pull boost" circuit.

Also, you may want to find some 18 watt Marshall clones that are out there...they sound great too. Fenders can sound a little scooped on their tone sometimes.

The Kustom is a one-voice amp. Not surprising you found a guitar/style that matches nicely with that voice. For a relatively inexpensive amp, I'd look at the Blackstar HT20 with its three voices or the HT40 for $100 more with two clean variants, upping that model to four voices and providing more headroom for clean tones. I do not have a Blackstar, yet, but I've been considering one seriously for the variety they appear to bring to the recording table. The recording out is a nice touch for quiet composing without getting the cops or the landlord called. :0

sorry for my newby amp question by the way, i'm trying to learn as fast as possible....
i'm investigating the 1 watt Blackstar at the moment
but not sure if a Tube amp at home/ studio would work without having trouble with police and neighbours

i hope i did understand it right about the 2 channel amp and master volume..
is it true that you can crank the gain on a channel and play it on whisper volume? thanks to the Master volume?

Heh, JD, you're asking a question that has a ton of "I-before-E-except-after-C" conditions attached to it. But, yes, the purpose of a master gain amp is to be able to recreate the tone of an overdriven amp without having to raise the preamp gain to painful levels. The rub is things get VERY interactive contingent on gain staging between guitar/preamp/master and very dependent on the amp design and power output so it's sort of one of those things that only you can decide if an amp is giving you the tone/distortion you're looking for at the volume level you desire.

If all you intend to do is record, you might want to look into software amp sims. Many are quite good at mimicking real amps and volume will never be an issue. One of the great things about sims is it used to take guitar players years of trial to find an amp line/amp model with the tone they loved. Nowadays you can dial through so many in a sim and fairly quickly figure out what sort of amp fits your music. Then go out and buy the real thing or a reproduction of the real thing. I'm rambling now...

Anyway, the little Blackstar HT5 has a recording output with which you can turn down the speaker output which might present you with the best of both worlds for recording "loud" guitar. Here's a video of a guy with the HT5 using that output alone. The HT20 and HT40 have the same recording output cabinet emulator. I suggest the HT20 and HT40 only because there's no way an HT1 or HT5 is going to have the power to hold a clean tone at a volume that can compete with a live drummer for when you jam with live musicians or play out. The HT20 may not as well, I don't know.

Caveat: Again, I own no Blackstar amps. My opinion is based solely on reviews and YouTube videos. Try before you buy. There's no substitute for your own ears with your own guitars. Also keep in mind at $700 for the HT40 you're in reach of some really nice amps. The Reeves Custom 12 recommended above has also drawn my ear/eye of late.